Read Online Deadfall (Nameless Detective) by Bill Pronzini - Free Book Online Page A

was making any noise inside. So I kept moving aft. Around back there was a little oblong deck floored in green Astro-turf and, in the middle of the decal-decorated superstructure, a door that I proceeded to bang on. Nothing happened, so I banged on it again.
    It opened abruptly and I was looking at a bulky guy in his early twenties, naked except for a pair of Levi’s. He had sandy hair puffed out in one of those frizzes, and judging from the scowl on his face, he also had a lousy disposition. He looked me over, decided I was nobody he knew or wanted to know, and said, “What is it?”
    “Richard Dessault?” That was the name of the guy Melanie was living with. His occupation, according to Ben Klein, was “poet.” Some occupation.
    “So?” he said. “You want something?”
    “Not from you. I’d like to talk to Melanie.”
    “What for?”
    “To ask her some questions about her uncle’s death.”
    “Ah, Christ,” he said disgustedly, “ another cop.”
    “I’m a detective, that’s right, but not a—”
    He shut the door in my face.
    It would have made me mad, except that he didn’t shut it all the way; the wind blew it open again. He was moving away across the room inside, toward another door at the opposite end, and when he felt the cold air against his bare skin he said without looking back at me, “Come on in then. I’ll get her.”
    I went in and closed the door, making sure it latched this time, and had a look around. There wasn’t much to see. The basic furnishings were a couple of low-slung teakwood tables, a pair of Oriental-style lamps, and a bunch of big pillows—shiny material in a variety of colors and exotic designs, most of them with tassels and fringe—scattered around on the floor. On one of the tables was a fancy water pipe—a hookah, I think they’re called—that you use to smoke tobacco, among other substances. It was all supposed to create a sultan’s harem effect. But the color TV and stereo equipment along one wall spoiled it; so did the overblown wall poster of some weird rock group called the Aluminum Dandruff.
    I waited about two minutes. I could hear voices from one of the other rooms, but not what was being said. It was a little chilly in there, but then maybe they depended on body heat to keep them warm; they had been generating enough of it a few minutes ago. Another of their heating devices, no doubt, was marijuana. The sweetish, acrid smell of it was sharp in the air.
    The table nearest me had a note pad and pencil on it. There was some writing on the pad; nosily I moved over a couple of steps and bent down to look at it. Nine lines, almost illegibly printed, under the title “Acapulco Gold”:
    gold, gold
can’t feel blue with the gold—
gold in the sunset,
gold in the hills
and valleys of my mind—
the big gold rush
gold, gold
digging the gold—
the big gold rush
    I straightened up again. Poet, my ass, I thought.
    The voices stopped finally, and the door across the room opened, and a girl came in. Dessault came in, too, but he hung back by the far wall while she moved forward to where I was. I don’t know what I expected her to be like—beautiful and dripping sex appeal, maybe, like heiresses in bad Hollywood movies—but she was a surprise in any case. Not much past twenty-one, skinny, flat-chested, with mouse-brown hair frizzed up like Dessault’s and bright vulpine eyes, one of which was slightly cocked. On both cheeks, which were still flushed from her recent exertion, little patches of acne flourished. She wore Levi’s and a tank top that made her chest look even flatter. Her feet were bare and dirty and the toenails were painted black.
    Sugar and spice and everything nice, I thought sourly.
    I said, “Melanie Purcell?”
    “That’s right. Who’re you?”
    I told her my name.
    “Cop, huh?” she said.
    “No. Private investigator.”
    A frown pinched her forehead and pulled her thin little mouth out of shape; the one cockeye seemed to be